U.S. – IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, announced it is submitting plans to the City of Jacksonville, Florida for a store that would increase the Swedish company’s presence in the southeastern U.S. with a fifth store in the state. 

CHILE – As part of its strategy of responsible growth with the environment, Imperial – a retail specialist chain of wood and panel boards formalized its entry into the Global Compact Network Chile, a United Nations entity that in Chile operates under the wing of the University Andrés Bello.

URUGUAY – By the end of this week is scheduled to open the second Sodimac store in Uruguay. Located in Sayago, Montevideo, the store occupies an area of 10,000 m2 and will include the Homecenter and Constructor formats.

CHILE – S&P Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s leading providers of financial market indices, and RobecoSAM, the investment specialist focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing, have selected the Falabella Group is to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for Emerging Markets (DJSI EM), thus becoming the first Chilean retail company to be included in this index, which tracks the leading sustainability-driven companies in Emerging Markets based on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors.

SWEDEN – Worldwide sales of IKEA Group amounted to a total of 31,900 million euros at the end of fiscal year 2015 (September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015), growth of 11.2%. Same store sales (SSS) growth was 5.1%.

U.S. – On August 24th The Home Depot announced it has completed its USD 1.62 billion acquisition of Interline Brands, Inc., a leading national distributor and direct marketer of broad-line maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products with an extensive local distribution network of more than 90 locations throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The agreement to acquire Interline was previously announced on July 22, 2015.

U.S. – Leading American home improvement retailers The Home Depot and Lowe’s, reported an increase in comparable sales for 2Q/2015 of 4.2% and 4.3% respectively. 

CHILE – The Falabella Group achieved a consolidated net profit in the second quarter of 2015 of CLP 115,422 million (USD 181 million), up 10% compared to the same period of 2014. The period also marked the opening of the first stores under the Homecenter Sodimac banner in Uruguay and Brazil.

PERU – With the inauguration on August 18 of the store located in the Civic Center district of Lima, Peru, Falabella completes 100 department stores in Latin America. 

GLOBAL – IKEA will globally change its range of LED lighting systems from next September 1st. LED light source has significant advantages in terms of energy consumption, as it consumes 85% less energy than traditional lighting systems and can last up to 20 years.

COLOMBIA – Grupo Éxito will enter two new countries for the first time, thanks to the acquisition of 50% of the voting shares of GPA (Grupo Pão de Açúcar) in Brazil and 100% of “Libertad” in Argentina.

MEXICO – During the second quarter, sales of Mexican retailer El Puerto de Liverpool SAB de C.V. (Liverpool) grew 12.1% while same-store sales (SSS) did so by 8.6%. On a cumulative basis the increase was of 11.5% in total stores and 8.2% of SSS.